Airplane wreckage found off the coast of Africa could belong to missing Flight MH370 has emerged. Multiple reports now indicate that a weather-battered aircraft section found earlier today on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean is part of a flaperon.

A flaperon is a control surface that acts both as a flap and an aileron.

Air crash investigators have a high degree of confidence that the flaperon found is from a Boeing 777, the same model as the doomed MH370 which disappeared without a trace in March 2014.

"We need to verify. We have wreckage found that needs to be further verified before we can further confirm if it belongs to MH370," Malaysian Minister of Transportation Liow Tiong Lai said in New York. "So we have dispatched a team to investigate on these issues and we hope that we can identify it as soon as possible."

The debris was found far west of officials' original search zones for MH370's wreckage that had been guided by satellite data transmitted from the aircraft before its disappearance.

But there could be a simple explanation, ocean currents have undoubtedly moved any floating debris from the plane in the year and a half since its crash.

Unfortunately, this also means that the component may not do much to help investigators zero in on where the rest of the plane can be found.

Since the Boeing 777 was introduced in 1994, there have been five incidents, including MH370, which have led to the destruction of the aircraft. MH370 is the only aircraft of its type which has vanished over the sea.

The plane was flying from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing, China, when it is thought to have come down in the Indian Ocean on March 8 last year.

There were 239 passengers and crew, most of whom were from China, on board when it disappeared.

MH370 vanished from radar screens shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia has officially declared the disappearance of the flight MH370 an accident and has said all 239 passengers and crew on board are presumed dead.

Information and details are still developing but the latest news appears to be the strongest evidence yet of the airliner's fate.